Three types of albums from ezz-thetics

In 1975 Werner X. Uehlinger founded the Swiss-based HatHut label which mainly released jazz by such illustrious names as Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, Joe McPhee, Max Roach and Cecil Taylor. The labels Hat MUSICS and Hat ART followed in 1981. !997 brought hatOLOGY and hat(now)ART, the latter issuing modern compositions by the likes of John Cage and Morton Feldman. In 2019, the ezz-thetics label was launched, the first not to carry the "hat" prefix.

As the three albums below illustrate, ezz-thetics releases three different types of albums: remastered versions of albums dating back to the '60s and earlier, recent recordings from a range of sources being issued for the first time and, on the label's First Visit imprint, live recordings by a range of sources, appearing for the first time.

Tadd Dameron
Fontainebleau & Magic Touch Revisited
Ezz-thetics
2024

In his lifetime (February 2017 to March 1965) Tadd Dameron was better known as a jazz composer and arranger than as a bandleader. The bands for which he arranged included such luminaries as Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine and Sarah Vaughan. By comparison, Dameron's own discography as leader or co-leader was relatively small, the number of albums being in single figures.

Given that, the two albums which comprise this album were well chosen as they present different facets of Dameron's recordings. Featuring an octet with Dameron himself on piano, Fontainebleu was recorded at Van Gelder Studios, Hackensack, New Jersey, on March 9, 1956 and released on the Prestige label later that year. Its five tracks are all Dameron compositions, their total time being 31:21, typical for an LP of the period. Beginning with the title track and ending with the longest track "Bula-Beige," the music swings throughout, driven by the five horns and supported by piano, bass and drums.

Fast forward six years and The Magic Touch was recorded in February, March and April 1962 at Plaza Sound Studios in New York City. All ten of its tracks are Dameron compositions and arrangements. Instead of playing piano as before, he conducted throughout the sessions, with none other than Bill Evans taking over piano duties. Unlike the single day in which Fontainebleu was recorded, the three months which The Magic Touch took to record meant that there were frequent changes of personnel. Nonetheless, Dameron did a good job of conducting, so the album does not sound like a potpourri. When one considers the music that Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy and others had produced by 1962, The Magic Touch can sound like a museum piece, predominantly appealing to big-band lovers.

Ran Blake
Live Amsterdam 2006
Ezz-thetics
2024

A casual glance at the credits of these three albums reveals that Live Amsterdam 2006 is simple compared to the other two. The album was recorded live in concert on April 21, 2006 at Bimhuis in Amsterdam. It features pianist Ran Blake playing solo for the first ten tracks and in a duo with electric guitarist Dave Fabris for the other eight, the solo and duo sets doubtless being two halves of the concert.

As is true of all First Visit albums on ezz-thetics, this is the album's first release. It is fitting that it is released on ezz-thetics as Blake has history with the "hat" labels. In 1988, a duo of Blake and Braxton recorded A Memory of Vienna ( hatOLOGY, 1988). In 1990 Blake, along with Lacy and Ricky Ford on saxophones, recorded That Certain Feeling (George Gershwin Songbook) (hatART, 1991). On the albums Something To Live For (hatOLOGY, 1999) and Horace is Blue: A Silver Noir (hatOLOGY, 2000) Blake and Fabris recorded together in trios.

Although Live Amsterdam 2006 is the fourth album by the Blake and Fabris duo, none of the previous three—Indian Winter (Soul Note, 2005), Vilnius Noir (NoBusiness, 2011) and Lettuce Prey (Great Winds, 2014)—was on a "hat" label.

Of the eighteen tracks on Live Amsterdam 2006 one is a Blake composition and another a Fabris composition. As is often true of Blake, the other sixteen are an eclectic bunch, including pieces by Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Abbey Lincoln, Bernard Hermann, Horace Silver, Ornette Coleman and the second Movement from Dimitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 9. Altogether, the eighteen tracks play for under 57 minutes, with the shortest track lasting 55 seconds, the longest 5:45 and 10 tracks lasting under three minutes, seven of which are Blake solo pieces.

As has often been true of Blake alone with a piano, his playing here is straightforward and melodic without any conventional solos as such but an occasional flourish to embellish a melody and merit it being called jazz. The album is at its best in the final eight tracks, each of which is a duet of piano and electric guitar; the duo (and trio) experience that Blake and Fabris had together shines through and they sound comfortable together from first note to last. Exquisite.

Claudio Sanna
Compositori Sardi Contemporanei II
Ezz-thetics
2024

This release is an example of the third type of album issued on ezz-thetics. It is not a historic recording being re-issued, nor an archive recording being issued for the first time, but a recording commissioned to be issued on the label. Recorded in Mantua, Italy, in 2023, Compositori Sardi Contemporanei II (Contemporary Sardinian Composers II) is the third album on a "hat" label to feature Sardinian pianist Claudio Sanna; it follows the much-praised Claudio Sanna: Ammentos Ammentos (hatOLOGY, 2015) and is the sequel to Compositori Sardi Contemporanei (ezz-thetics, 2022) which was also a double CD.

For the first volume of Compositori Sardi Contemporanei Sanna commissioned 31compositions from eight Sardinians and performed them all on piano himself but, for the second volume, he commissioned 19 compositions from 20 Sardinian composers and they were played by six players including Sanna himself, two other pianists, two players of live electronics, and a double bassist. As that instrumentation indicates, the music here is a long way from the lone piano of the first volume. The album opens with "Cosmogonia Semplis " by Adriano Orru, played solo for six minutes on double bass by Anna Zerlotto, the only solo bass piece on the album.

All of the other compositions involve piano in one way or another, with some of them making creative use of other instruments. So, seven of the pieces are played on solo piano, six combine piano and electronics, four are played by two pianists / four hands, and one is played on toy piano. (The YouTube below shows Claudio Sanna on piano and Paolo Pastorino on live electronics, performing "Nodas 14" by Gabriele Verdinelli.) Thanks to Sanna, the album gives the impression that the composers' pieces and the musicians' performances of them were ideally suited to one another throughout. Given the changes that have taken place since the 2022 first volume, the third volume will be eagerly awaited by many.

Tracks and Personnel

Fontainebleu & Magic Touch Revisited

Tracks: Fontainebleu; Delirium; The Scene Is Clean; Flossie Lou; Bula-Beige; On a Misty Night; Fontainebleu; Just Plain Talkin'; If You Could See Me Now; Our Delight; Dial B For Beauty; Look, Stop And Listen; Bevan's Birthday; You're A Joy; Swift As The Wind.

Personnel: Tadd Dameron: piano (1-5); Kenny Dorham: trumpet (1-5); Henry Coker: trombone (1-5); Sahib Shihab: alto saxophone (1-5); Joe Alexander: tenor saxophone (1-5); Cecil Payne: baritone saxophone (1-5); Joe Simmons: double bass (1-5); Shadow Wilson: drums (1-5); Joe Wilder: trumpet (10-11, 13); Clark Terry: trumpet (8-14); Ernie Royal: trumpet (10-11, 13); Jimmy Cleveland: trombone (8-14); Britt Woodman: trombone (10-11, 13); Julius Watkins: french horn (10-11, 13); Leo Wright: alto saxophone & flute (8-14); Jerry Dodgion: alto saxophone & flute (10-11, 13); Jerome Richardson: tenor saxophone & flute (8-14); Johnny Griffin: tenor saxophone (8-14); Tate Houston: baritone saxophone (8-14); Bill Evans: piano (8-14); George Duvivier: double bass (10-11, 13); Philly Joe Jones: drums (8-14); Charlie Shavers: trumpet (6-7, 15); Ron Carter: double bass (6-9, 12, 14-15); Barbara Winfield: vocals (9, 14).

Live Amsterdam 2006 First Visit

Tracks: Vladiazi; This Will All Seem Funny; Collaboration; Drop Me Off In Harlem/Night and Day; Merci Bon Dieu; Hornin' In; All That is Tied; Throw It Away; Paris; Bye Bye Blackbird; Machito/Jammin'; Vilna; North By Northwest; Nightcrawler; Soulville; Sadness/Space Church; Spiral Staircase; Symphony No. 9 Second Movement.

Personnel: Ran Blake: piano; Dave "Knife" Fabris: electric guitar (11-18).

Compositori Sardi Contemporanei II

Tracks: Cosmogonia Semplice; Eos-Phobos; La Mer Allèe Avec Le Soleil; Nodas 14; Quattro Pensieri Per Il Nuovo Anno:-Pensiero I; Pensiero II; Pensiero III; Pensiero IV; Ponti Al Telefono Per L'Iniziato I; Infinito; Duoso; Sound Transendence; Pietre Di Una Esposizione:-Terra; Aria; Fuoco; Acqua; Bethei; Charmolypi; Quell'estate Il Mare Piu Silenzioso; Guadix IV; Danza; Luci E Ombre; Petite Suite:-Prelude; Allemanda; Corrente; Adagio; Finale; La Plurima Ombra Del Senso; Beats Études " I. Black And White Beats."

Personnel: Claudio Sanna: piano; Anna Zerlotto: double bass (1); Federico Nicoletta: piano (11, 21); Leonado Zunica: piano (12); Sandro Mangianu: live electronics (28); Paolo Pastorino: live electronics (4, 13-16).

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